Long Sumac Poems
Long Sumac Poems. Below are the most popular long Sumac by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Sumac poems by poem length and keyword.
Slow Dancing the Past
by Odin Roark
Shadows of yesterday frozen
Even as high noon’s blazing heat
Seems never to pass
Fixed sturdy upon Nature’s ties
Once shiny rails
Hard driven spikes
Forward movement changed
In mind’s imploding delirium
From behind
Memoir nudges our sway
Reluctantly we swing
Along bedrock now exposed
Arresting our attention
Wildness carries forth endless existence
Prickly sumac and hobo milkweed
Bathe in the swirling dust of perpetuity
As a Monarch’s wings tuck
Taking refuge beneath rock
Where the snake’s watchful eye
Bids patience
All around
Admittance dictates
Real life’s Iron Horse long gone
Even though
Journey’s seduction
Fantasy
Dreams
Delusions
Remains always ahead
Waiting inside more transition tunnels
As youth walking the tracks
We saw the tunnel as mystery
Adventure beckoning
Threatening darkness
Where simple unease
Made exiting
Peeking light
At carving’s end
Time passed
Passageways continued
Beckoning our courage
Tracks of all sorts
Lead to choosing
Pondering
Decision
Endurance
Some of us ambled
Others jetted through
Even fewer stared
At risk’s pure darkness
Imagined finality
And then…
Some of us sat
Taking up the gentle amity
Of sumac’s brambly aliveness
Milkweed’s sharing promise
Monarch’s trusting beauty
The serpent’s eye winks
We smile at it all
As memories slow dance the past
Reflecting off our bygone rails
The ground rumbles, ominously, I'm on the steep side of a Mississippi River Bluff, mid-August, gathering bursting crimson red trophies of Staghorn Sumac for my favorite sumac-ade, a spright, invigorating tonic I enjoy this time of year. The smell in the air, forest-sage beginning to dry and ripen, the bitter tang of scattered paper-birch bark chimneys...must keep alert for the origins of the earthly rumble.
The unsettled earth, sweet and bitter smells...mix with my age and I sit down as if in a trance and drift asleep...harkening back to my training as a young man in a Manhattan Bagel Deli, assembling prep-stations for the customer onslaught about to descend. Proofed bagel dough, seeded and rotating in the elevator slate-shelved oven after a frothy malt-bath in the bubbling giant kettle, delectable aromas of fairly vibrating paper-sliced spiced meats and piquant aged cheeses, briny sheets of smoked lox, pots of sweetly acidic capers and luminous heirloom tomatoes...
But I'm much older now, my mind remembers, but my body can't function like it once did, I can't perform the once-easy configurations effortlessly like before.
The rumbling, just my imagination...
I awaken, gather my bunch of fluorescent sumac, which I am still able to concoct, mindful of God's Grace in my spiritual and physical evolution...He
Has Blessed me with.
8-13-20
6:03 am
How cool!
this early summer evening
after a day so oppressive
even we New Yorkers move painstakingly.
The breeze in sumac trees
so why am I not more content?
The electricity went off at the bank,
spontaneous bank holiday,
so I'm broke, drinking water.
All my needs except love
fulfilled. Woman
opens her windows. How cool!
this summer evening
in New York, dense New York
the jets overhead
the people on the ground suffering
and struggling toward vague goals
or goals clear as Harry Helmsley's.
How cool and refreshing
this glass of ice water
after today's hot pavement, clothes.
During the afternoon heat
I sleep in my underwear.
What a city I murmur to myself
looking at its map. Big,
Jamaica Bay to Inwood,
the Battery to Pelham Bay.
Nowadays novels need
a few cities to move the plot.
New York, Saigon, Paris.
The protagonist
does not walk in the park. He
uses his car to get around fast.
How cool this evening in New York!
Lost among the bars and industry,
moonrise over Bronx.
Written: September 17, 2023
______________________________________________________________
In the misty, morbid moors of winter mantle,
Meadows lay barren in gray shades and prattle.
Skies, akin to canvas, drawn with grief and woe,
Skylarks seek shelter as spartan spurs stow.
Wind whispers weakly, a woebegone wound.
Silence slopes set the slues, a solemn sound.
Bark of ancient trees bears the scars of time.
Sinew firmly in the earth, their roots entwine.
In liable land, where souls languish and swell
Winter bite runs deep, and the drear dwells.
But amid the anguish, there is a hidden flame.
A spark of creation, an optimism that tames
A durion stands lofty with its thorny crown.
A eucalyptus dances and savory shrubs abound.
Humble plantain sways; it sheds a vibrant green,
While the sumac and cypress tag hues yet unseen.
The catechu and bauhinia bestow blooms,
Litchi and Bay cram the air with fond perfumes.
Limbs of birch trees sway, twigs rending the sky.
While the tim and brier pace, with a wild cry.
Brazilwood and aeolian trees unveil vibrant hues.
As the shill of the wind gyrates, idling a tune, true
Tumbleweed rolls, a nomad in the bleak land,
With every beat of its seed, it crafts a sound, grand.
Intermittent blight may be dimming the scene,
But the spirit of nature remains evergreen.
In the misty moors, as winter holds its sway,
Nature's beauty and resilience find a way
When I was very young
All I really wanted
To be was an Indian.
My mother always read to me -
Stories of fairies and elves,
Of princesses and ogres, witches,
And brownies who did good deeds.
Poems, “Wynken, Blynken and Nod”,
“The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat”,
And “The Sugar Plum Tree”.
Books, Alice in Wonderland,
The Little Colonel stories, and
The Five Little Peppers.
(I wonder if my grandchildren
Have ever heard of any of the
Old-fashioned stories and poems
Which were all magic to me.)
But, most of all, I loved
Longfellow’s poem Hiawatha.
“By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining deep sea water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis…”
I hear my mother almost singing
Those magical words from
“The Childhood of Hiawatha”.
I could see Hiawatha growing up
And learning Indian ways in
The woodlands of his youth.
I wanted to live in the woods,
To learn to talk with animals
And know their secrets.
I wanted to wear moccasins
And build a birch bark canoe!
One Christmas my brother got
A cowboy suit and hat and holsters,
But I, wonder of wonders,
Got a “real” Indian dress
With designs of tiny beads,
A fringe on the skirt,
And a headband with feathers!
I told my friends I was part Indian,
That my great grandmother
Was a real live Indian!
When it got back to my mother
She just said, “What stories you tell!”
Although I outgrew the dress,
The dream stayed with me
Throughout my childhood -
Sort of wishful thinking.
I always wanted to
Be close to nature.
Much of my childhood
I spent by myself, somewhat
Of a loner, climbing trees,
Making hideouts in the woods,
Walking in streams
To “cover my tracks”.
That “Indian child” I was
Still lives on in the
Recesses of my memory.
Maybe that’s why now, “grown up”,
I love walking in the woods
Or foraging by the ocean,
Why Stalking the Wild Asparagus
Is one of my favorite books,
Why I love picking wild blueberries
And grapes and making jam, or
Digging for clams and mussels.
Why I HAD to experiment with cooking
Slipper shells and making
Seaweed pudding and “Sumac-ade”.
Of course, I realize,
As well as anyone, that
The life of an Indian was not
As idyllic as I had once believed,
But, even now, after
All these years have passed,
It appears that
My “inner Indian”
Is alive and well and
Living on Martha’s Vineyard!